The dog chase ended in a soggy rescue. Photo / 123rf
I’m crossing my fingers big-time that the written word – more specifically, “my” written word – does the comedy that unfolded before me the other day justice.
It was one of those occasions you wish someone had filmed. I’m sure you know what I mean.
Okay. So here’s what happened.
We are hunkered down in this rural spot waiting for days of generally drizzly, blustery weather to exit stage left.
Mrs P has filled in the time visiting each of the five op shops in the surrounding area. On this particular day, she has left me to my own devices while she crosses the fifth and last op shop off her list.
She’s donating a jacket she bought at op shop number four just the day before. I can’t even begin to work out how to explain that but if you feel a slight breeze, that’s the wind disturbance caused by me shaking my head in bewilderment.
Anyway.
While she’s away, I’m still at the caravan, undertaking one of the many maintenance chores somewhere around the back, when a black cat crosses my path. At speed.
Hard on his heels is a dog.
It’s one of those medium-sized things which is all legs, ears and tail bowling along at different speeds. The best way to describe it is as an “avalanche” of dog.
Charging along in such a manner is all well and good when you are travelling in a straight line, but when you make a quick course deviation, then you’ve got a problem.
Now I don’t know if the cat was aware of that but as I watched, he made a sharp left turn and shot under a hedge.
Hilariously, his enthusiastic pursuer could not change direction so quickly and had to slam on the anchors.
That’s when the real fun began.
As I mentioned, we’ve had a bit of rain here recently so the grass all around is a bit wet and slippery. There’s also a steep gradient going down to a relatively close stream and you’d be right in thinking the chances of someone getting wet were quite high.
And that’s just what happened.
As the cat disappeared, the dog slammed on the brakes and belly-flopped on to the grass – and carried on sliding.
We are parked on a flat bit of land but at the very end of it is where the gradient started. Unfortunately, The Avalanche was unable to stop sliding before he went off the flat bit and started down the slope.
As he did so, an exasperated lady jogged past me calling out for him to come back.
I think he would have if he could but as I watched, The Avalanche went off the bank at the end of the slope and straight into the stream.
As mentioned, we’ve had a bit of constant rain. Consequently, the aforementioned stream is running a bit higher and faster than normal.
Certainly too fast for a young dog, presumably wondering why he was suddenly in the middle of a washing machine being tossed around when the last thing he’d been doing was chasing a cat.
But now we’ve got a bit of a problem.
The stream is running too fast for the dog to get any sort of footing going and very quickly he’s being carried away.
Luckily, he’s got a caring owner and before you can say “where’d that cat go”, she’s jumped in to save him.
By now, I’m having to squeeze my bladder – if you know what I mean. But I figure I should see if I can help too. Essentially because it’s either that or stand there wetting myself with laughter.
The water is probably knee-deep but it’s quite swift so the lady is having some trouble standing up. She’s sat down twice already so is well and truly saturated.
But she’s managed to secure the pooch and he’s safely in her arms. Now all that remains is for her to be assisted out of the stream.
Myself and another bloke – both in standard caravan living attire of shorts and barefoot – then jumped in to save the day.
To be honest, that’s a bit of a stretch. We didn’t do much.
The lady had managed to do all the important rescuing and had made it to the shallower fringes when we finally dipped our toes in, mainly to help her up the slippery bank.
Disaster averted, I trudged back to the caravan, where I found Mrs P returned from her op-shop quest.
And she had a companion. A black cat, sitting on her lap like he owned the place and without a care in the world.
Apparently, she’d come home to find the door wide open and the caravan empty.
Apart, that is, from this black cat sitting there on the couch looking out the window at the stream below.
She didn’t say, but I bet he was laughing too.